Maï Bordiec is a MSc student in numerical mechanics at the University of Nantes, France. Interested in a transversal internship proposal suggested by the Laboratory of Planetology and Geodynamics of Nantes, she decided to study the generation of ice ripples during her first year of MSc.

In this work, she developed a model in order to understand the mechanisms that generate periodic bedforms or “ice ripples” on terrestrial ice sheets and to evaluate the plausibility that similar bedforms may develop on Mars. The redistribution of surface ice does not involve solid particle transport but may be dominated by sublimation and condensation, inducing mass transfers between the ice surface and the overlying steady boundary layer turbulent flow. In her PICO presentation, she presented the model and its application on Earth and on Mars where a good match between the predictions and the recent observations of the polar cap surface was shown.